ETHIOPIA REPRESENTED AT BANANA HILL

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 3.27.23) Nega Yilma crossed the border between Ethiopia and Kenya for the first time carrying just two paint brushes. Not that he wouldn’t need more than that to launch his career as a painter of past acclaim. He’d been winning art awards from the time he was twelve. He’d also been fortunate to attend what he says is the largest art school in Africa, at University of Addis Ababa. But he’d wanted a change, which he definitely found in coming to Kenya. On the positive side, it enabled him to exhibit his art everywhere from RaMoMa (when it was still situated at Rahimtulla Tower in Upper Hill) and the Kenya Art Fair (when it was still at Sarit Centre) to Banana Hill Gallery, University of Nairobi, and Karen Country Club. The fine art of painting and exhibiting has never been a problem for Nega. It’s the challenge of staying alive that was problematic for this eccentric Ethiopian artist for a time. It meant applying his vibrant imagination to issues ordinary people struggle with every day, such as how to put food on the table, how to stay warm (or how to stay cool) when the weather is contrary, and how to find a secure and affordable place to sleep with a roof over his head. Speaking to BDLife shortly after his first solo show opened at Banana Hill Gallery last weekend, Yega is shameless about explaining the jobs he was compelled to take in order to survive. “I’ve been everything from a security guard and gardener to a teacher, a boxer, and nomad who has moved so many places since I first came to Kenya in 1997,” Nega says. He is also a great storyteller and easily recalls how he has lived everywhere from Loresho Ridge, Muthaiga, and Kitisuru to Eastleigh, Dagoretti Corner, and currently, Banana Hill, just a five-minute walk from the Gallery. “This is my first solo exhibition in Kenya, and I’m happy to be having it at Banana Hill Gallery,” says the 51-year-old former boxer. ‘The Last Born of Melody’ is filled with 40 paintings, mainly portraits (or parodies of selfie portraits), but also landscapes, seascapes, and colorful abstract expressionistic images, a few of which are Nega’s response to the rock art recently found in his home country. Having lived and worked in Kenya from 1997 up until early 2020, Nega adds that all these works were painted during the COVID lockdown in Addis. This may have influenced his painting two works on ‘The Elders’. Only one of them has an assemblage of wise old guys who look like the embodiment of dignity. The other is a singular portrait of a beautiful old man. Surprisingly, they are the only works in the show that are almost hyper-realistic in their delicate attention to detail, refined lines, and focus on the important features of the men’s faces. Yet Yega doesn’t stop with faces. In the same paintings, he also explores issues of design and how many different design ideas can be squeezed into his men’s attire, be they on a tie, lapel, hat, collar or jacket. They all have that multi-cultural charm of mixing and never matching the designs. It works on the streets of Nairobi, and it also works in Nega’s art. His portraits all have that long neck and long faced-look that Nega suggests derive from his view of selfie devotees. They are people who gain a sense of pride when they are in control of their selfie space. They don’t mind sharing it with maybe one other, but no more since they prefer owning the focus of attention in what they consider their mode of expression. To them, their selfie is a work of art. It is these self-centered selfie people that Nega paints. Yet he also paints sweet people like the two boys in the coffee plantation, the girl in the yellow dress, and the man with his saxophone about to give a Miles Davis-styled performance. Nega also takes note of the tremendous changes that Nairobi has gone through over the last two years since COVID kicked us out of our known lives and turned us all into indoor plants that were craving the light of day. Finally, the light has come, so have the rains. Both bring us closer to Nega’s bright jigsaw puzzles of design as well as to his series entitled ‘Looking for the light’ which reveals a conceptual side of the artist that is deep and deliciously captivating.

BROOKHOUSE BOOSTS THEATRE WITH CHILDREN’S SATIRE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (oisted 3.22.23) Two wings of Brookhouse School staged satires for children this past week, each one derived from classical canons, one in film, the other in literature. And each was staged inside their school’s resplendent auditorium. Brookhouse Karen opened first with “Dorothy and the Thief of Oz’, a children’s theatre adaptation of the Hollywood film classic, The Wizard of Oz. It’s a fantasy about a Tin-man (Kimani Mugo), Lion (Robert Githinji), and Scarecrow (Christopher Waititu) who team up with a lost little girl from Kansas, Dorothy (Zainli Sisay), to find solutions to each of their heartfelt problems. The play has a similar theme and storyline, although it’s set sometime after the original problems have been resolved, and a new set of issues have to be solved. Meanwhile, Brookhouse Runda, working with children of the same age-group as those in Karen staged Barbara Cohen’s adaptation of Chaucer’s 14th century classic, Canterbury Tales. Both plays are about groups on a journey either to solve problems (Oz) or to arrive at a religious site (Canterbury). Both are ambitious scripts for 11-13-year-olds to dramatize, especially as the scriptwriters seemed to be writing for older youth. And frankly, the stage adaptation of the Hollywood film classic presupposed that both the actors and the audiences were familiar with the film or at least with the storyline, which is not necessarily the case for most Kenyans. So, they wouldn’t be able to keep up with the jokes or references made that refer to the film. For instance, they might not know what’s so special about the tinman’s heart and how he can still be walking around without it. But whether you know the story or not, Dorothy’s story now is all about her quest to find the thief who stole the Tinman’s heart. It’s imperative because, as we learned from the film, the heart is a symbol of love and the site where feelings of love, compassion, and empathy are all drawn from. Dorothy had arrived on the day Tinman was meant to be wedded to his sweetheart. But without a heart, he has lost all interest in his fiancée and in getting married. So, it’s actually the fiancée who begs Dorothy to get involved. From then on, Dorothy becomes a kind of girl detective, investigating who might have stolen his heart and why they did it? It’s a clever storyline, and the cast handled it well except that some students spoke their lines so fast that some of us couldn’t hear what they were talking about. Ironically, it seemed that the fast talkers had worked so hard to memorize their lines that they forgot to put more heart and feeling into those same words. Meanwhile, the pilgrims on their way to Canterbury had chosen to tell stories on their journey, so the play includes a series of diverse short stories. One was about thieves laying in wait for travelers whom they would rob and potentially kill which they did in one of the stories that got told and dramatized by Runda youth. Yet however dark the stories in either play came off, the casts did not seem to have a problem dramatizing them. And in any case, in ‘The Thief of Oz’, the discovery of ‘whodunit’ by Dorothy and her team was whimsical and quite fun. The thief was the Cacao-man from the Kingdom of Chocolate. He had stolen Tinman’s heart because he too had the problem of living a shallow, unloving and thin-skinned life because chocolate people in this kingdom apparently have hollow bodies. Thus, the Cacao-man wanted it for his wife. He was compelled to give back the heart. We don’t know what happened to him or to his wife after that, but Dorothy solved the case. I guess the Cacaos can be considered ‘collateral damage’. Otherwise, apart from the scripts and the storylines, the plays themselves had an amazing work force supporting their shows. For instance, the lighting was fabulous at both schools. It was the lights-man in ‘The Thief of Oz’ who enabled us to see the old-fashioned telephone operator working way up above the stage in the balcony. The light beams directed us to see her and appreciate her role in the play. The sound system was equally efficient as both casts were well ‘mic-ed’. The directors deserve to be commended for assisting their cast members to learn their lines well. It was only one or two students who didn’t take their time to ensure that their words would be heard and understood by their audience. Equally, the costuming was impressive in both instances although several students at Karen apparently preferred wearing fancy dress rather than role-specific costumes. In contrast, in Runda, every cast member wore costumes that were supportive of their roles, be they performing as birds or human beings. Ultimately, the best thing about both performances is that they reflect the parents and school administration’s awareness of the value of the imagination and the performing arts.

PILATE, THE MAN, MOTIVE, AND MURDERER AT NATIONAL THEATRE NEXT WEEKEND

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 3.21. 23) Attending a rehearsal of Chemichemi Players’ latest production, Pilate, was a thought-provoking experience. Invited by the group’s founder-director, Julisa Rowe, I couldn’t resist taking her up on her invitation. She’s a well-known drama teacher, director, and actor in her own right as we saw recently when she co-starred in ‘Spread your Garment over me’ with six other outstanding women actors in performing portraits of women mentioned in the Bible, everyone from Eve and Deborah to Rahab, Rizpah, and Sarah. She directed that show as well as a subsequent one that complimented the all-women’s play. Entitled ‘Leaders and Kings,’ the show featured an all-male cast playing everyone from Jeremiah, Joshua, and Pharoah to Adam, David, and Eli. Both of those plays were scripted by an American playwright, Mark Allen Eaton. And even her latest work, both producing and directing a play about Pontius Pilate, is by the same playwright, Mark Allen Eaton. As such, all three plays take Bible stories and transforms their central characters into fascinating human beings whose challenges are brought to light with penetrating insight. Pilate (played deftly by Justin Mirichii) is a particularly interesting Bible character. He was neither a Christian nor a Jew, which might have made it easier for him to pass the final judgment on the life of Jesus Christ. Other than knowing he was the Governor of Judah during the days of the tyrannical King Tiberius, we know little about Pilate. That left Eaton lots of psychological space to delve into the Governor’s mind as well as into his marriage to Claudia, which had its own complications. Pilate opens next weekend, March 31st, at Oshwal Academy Secondary. I will attend its Kenyan premiere as I’ve been looking forward to seeing the whole play. I only watched Act 1, but I was already riveted by what I saw. Pilate is a complicated character and Justin Mirichii grasps that complexity with subtle insight. I could already see that his political ambitions clashed with the marital hopes of his wife, Claudia (Joyce Musoke) who was having deep doubts about her marriage to Pilate. On more than one occasion, she admits she should have known from the outset that their marriage had been too rushed and nothing like what she’d wanted for her wedding day. But she compromised her desires and complied with his plan, so how would that go in Act 2, I wondered? Pilate is an ambitious man. He was a relatively good guy, good enough to win Claudia’s heart. But he also has a secret lust for power and prestige which is one reason he agrees to go to Jerusalem and become Governor of the volatile kingdom of Judah. Pilate’s job is to deal with the Hebrew slaves and rule them with ‘an iron hand’. But he isn’t that kind of guy. The nuances of his decision with regard to Jesus are undoubtedly brought to light in Act Two. One begins to pick them up in the first act, where one sees how Pilate wants to please his superiors because he wants a seat in the Senate. He believes that by pleasing the Sadducees and Pharisees who we are told ‘hate’ Jesus and want him dead, he can use that decision as a stepping stone to more powerful and prestigious positions in government. Act Two reveals whether that happens or not. Naturally, the playwright is conversant with what Pilate ultimately chose to do. He is apparently an agnostic, so religious dogma has no power to sway his decision related to Jesus’s fate. Nonetheless, his wife Claudine has grown increasingly committed to the ’son of God’ and that must have galled Pilate no end. Pilate opens March 31st and between now and then, this show is going to get even more fascinating. Did I mention that the Hebrews blamed Pilate for many things, including the death of John the Baptist who makes a brief appearance in the play. So does Jesus whom Claudia makes a point of introducing herself to. She is deeply moved by the man, so much so that Pilate suggests she loves Jesus more than him, which could very well be true. Clearly, she transfers her affections from her busy husband who has no time for her to this holy man who had time for everyone. So be assured Pilate is a show that one also need not be a Christian or a Jew to enjoy. I recommend that you go and see it for yourself.

POST-MODERN PUPPETRY ENCHANTS CHILDREN, ADULTS ALIKE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 3.14.23)

The Good, the Bad and the Wolf’ (GBW) is a splendid shocker of a show. Deemed ‘family friendly’ by its producers, Aperture Africa, the performance, which premiered last Friday night at Oshwal Academy Junior High Auditorium, was so much more than that. It was musical theatre which had its cast singing and dancing to a musical score that was light and yes, child-friendly. Yet it was equally vibrant with hip hop sounds and rhythms that were syncopated and fresh.

It was also comedy as scriptwriter-director Kasia Meszaros and her Polish counterpart Maciej Ochalik had fun transforming the traditional into the post-modern where Andrew Tumbo’s Wolf was never threatening but ever absurd in his efforts to trick three little pigs and little red riding hood, but never managed to succeed. GBW was also a platform for seeing new talents that were versatile and skilled theatrically. All that was best seen from the moment the show opened and Doanna Owano took on her first role as the Narrator of this delightfully re-imagined fairy tale, the re-assembling of two traditional children’s stories into one inspiring production that brought children up on stage on opening night and got parents equally engaged.

Unlike traditional puppetry, the puppeteers not only showed their faces on stage. They also voiced their puppets’ words without hiding their role in speaking the puppets’ part. It’s a liberated style of puppetry that seemed to let loose a heightened power of imagination, skill and style that defied stereotypes and challenged its audience to engage with them wholeheartedly. It also seemed that one of the company’s key commitments was to create a production that was immersive and interactive, and one that drew out the child in everyone who came to watch.

As much as GBW is called puppet theatre, Kasia introduced us to a radically different kind of theatre from what Nairobi audiences are used to seeing. It felt inclusive of several genres of performance combined. For it wasn’t just children’s theatre and simple fairy tales. There was also storytelling, singing, dancing, comedy and satire as well as interactivity and a complete breakdown of the wall between the actors and the audience. Then again, it was also a puppet show, but these puppets had a life of their own, shaped as they were by the same puppet-makers (Fedelis Kyalo and Victor Otieno) that create the ones we see regularly on The XYZ Show. Kasia’s script included a slew of fairy tale characters, everyone from the Three Little Pigs (played by Fedelis, Victor, and Chandni Vaya) to Little Red (Chandni was double cast), her Granny (Doanna was also double cast), and eventually even the big bad Wolf with whom we almost sympathized since we knew that he was bound to fail, no matter how ferocious he tried to be. Costumed in a coat and hat that looked like they were made from a wolf’s wooly skin, Tumbo’s Wolf was otherwise represented only by a large sharp-toothed head that the actor wielded like a weapon aimed at his prey, those he’d never get a chance to eat.

It was only Bilal Wanjau who didn’t fit into the fairy tale class, but he nonetheless added to the hilarity of the show with his eccentric conduct. Using three different half-masks, he took on the characters of a salesman, a cop, and a Mr Patel, all of whom made us laugh. Kasia told BDLife that in the traditional style of puppetry, the actors remain hidden while they manipulate their puppets. But in the post-modern mode that she brought to Kenya, the puppeteers (which she prefers to call ‘animators’) come out from behind the curtain and breathe life into their puppets through the power of their imagination. In this new method, there is meant to be no distinction between the puppeteer and the puppet. The puppet becomes an extension of the actor, or vice versa. They are meant to work as one. And that is what we saw in GBW.

Speaking to Kasia before the show opened, she told BDLife that it was a pleasure to work with her cast, especially as it had brought her closer to Kenyans than she had the opportunity to get before. But the show was also a time for her to share and mentor them in her new techniques of puppetry and performance. “It was a new experience for us both, but it was a privilege to work with such a sensitive cast who quickly picked up our new approach to puppetry.”

ADAM MASAVA AND COSTER OJWANG, A DYNAMIC DUO

Adam Masava and Coster Ojwang didn’t ask for an open-air exhibition at the ground floor entrance of Village Market. The two visual artists didn’t ask originally to set up their easels right next to the Saturday afternoon jazz trio that practically every visitor wants to see and listen to once they arrive at older end of the oldest Runda mall. But all that is what they got since the new exhibition hall that they’d been promised wasn’t finished until the following week. But it was good for these two busy painters who managed to attract quite a few red dot sales that first Saturday. “It turned out to be a blessing in disguise,” Masava told BDLife who was on hand to meet and greet prospective clients and curious passersby, many of whom wanted to know why Masava painted on mabati (rusty corregated iron sheets). “I want my paintings to reflect the positivity of the slums,” he said. “People associate slums with negative stereotypes, but I want them to understand that a lot of healthy, happy people live there,” he added. His works in this show are a series of portraits of working people, most of whom are in the business of transporting basic essentials like bread, milk, water, and gas. Their modes of transport range from mainly bicycles and trolleys to plain old-fashioned walking. He also pays attention to the mamas who are busy preparing meals in roadside kibanas (informal outdoor eateries) The former sign-writer who got his start as a visual artist painting thank you cards says he never went to art school. But he did meet the Sisters of Mercy who worked in the Mukuru slums teaching art and crafts to kids like himself. It was on the strength of that teaching that he’s been invited to exhibit his art everywhere from Czech Republic, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands to China, Taiwan, New York, and Zanzibar. “I’ll be traveling to Atlanta next week where I’ll be having an exhibition from next month,” he said, admitting that his challenge was finding time to create new works for his next show. But he’s confident there’s a time for everything, including looking after all the artists in the Mukuru Art Club that he started back in 2017 to mentor young artists. Having know Coster Ojwang from around the same time, the two have exhibited together occasionally. “It was adam who introduced me to Charles Murito and the monthly Dusit D2 group exhibitions,” Coster tells BDLife. Originally from Kisumu where he studied fine art at the Mwangaza Art Academy before coming to Nairobi, coster recalls that he met Masava around the same time that his artwork won an award at the Manjano competition. He’s been doing well ever since, having linked up with William Ndwiga of the Little Gallery so that now, he has his art in spaces like the I&M Bank and elsewhere, Coster’s art contrasts sharply with Masava in that he works traditionally in acrylics on canvas. And in this show, he focuses primarily on landscape painting. He also includes a series on Nairobi traffic but ironically, his car scenes reflect none of the anxiety and frustration that many drivers experience first-hand from having to cope with getting stuck in traffic. There’s a sweet feeling of calm in all of coster’s paintings. The only problem with having a show in which more than 50 works are on display at a go, is that we see a kind of repetition in the work that it can be disappointing for anyone wishing to be a unique, one-of-a-kind work of art. On the plus side of this scene is that Coster has kept many of his smaller pieces remarkably low. The works, however repetitive they might seem, are actually distinctly different. Granted the differences might be slight, a change of color coordination on the land, a difference in cloud formation, or the color shading of the blue sky. But either way, each piece is a lovely landscape, Coster having gotten sensitized to what his prospective client population might like to see. Coster came into the Nairobi art world with skills, expectations, passion, and energy aimed at becoming a professional painter as soon as possible. But he took his time to research and watch how the local art scene operates. Plus he, like Masava, has blessed with people who’ve come into their lives especially to help them progress. For Coster, artists who have helped him grow include Adrian Nduma and Patrick Kinuthia, two truly talented painters who have helped Coster get to where he is today,

BETRAYAL IS TRUE TO THE SPIRIT OF IMBUGA

It was refreshing to see how much a production can be improved and radically transformed in a single week. It was as if by magic ‘Betrayal in the city’, staged over the last two weekends at Kenya National Theatre, went from being a slow-going play that was over three hours long to becoming a lively satire on the city in the 1980s during the darkest days of Daniel arap Moi. Imbuga was amazing in his ability to craft a script that subtlety satirized everyone from the students, civil servants, and sycophants to the politicians, prison guards, and demigods like Boss (Raymond Ofula). But the show’s producers, Nairobi Performing Arts Studio (NPAS) also deserve some credit. They managed to do it in part because the show had such a brilliant cast whose members could easily adapt to the thorough-going changes introduced at the eleventh hour. What changed was everything from the play taking off more quickly with Jusper’s parents (Wakio Nzenge and Omondi Ngota) already at the grave site of their student activist son Adike rather than lumbering in while weeping and wailing. Also changed were the extended mad rants of everyone from Jusper (Francis Ouma Faiz) to Mulili (Ibrahim Muchemi) and the crazy prison askari (Fish Chege). All of them played brilliant crazies in their own way, but each of them carried on the first weekend just slightly too long.

The trick for producer-director Stuart Nash was to figure out how not to diminish the passion expressed so powerfully by his cast while keeping it within a tighter time frame. The first one whose performance gained qualitatively from the changes introduced was Wakio given her character, Jusper’s mother, Nina, deserved to grieve. Her son had been shot by cops after their having been given the green light to shoot students on sight. What was worse was the way they’d desecrated his grave which meant it was unit for the ceremony meant to appease the ancestors. Then, when she heard Jusper had also been jailed for shooting one of Boss’s hitmen, she is overwhelmed. Finally, she manages to temper the wailing while retaining her passion.

The man responsible for her grief, Mulili, also gave a brilliant performance. But his crazy way of flaunting his power (he being a cousin to Boss) was not just cruel and malicious. He embodied an arbitrary Idi Amin-style of bumping people off that led eventually to justifying Jusper’s final act in the play. It was Mulili who was responsible (with Boss) for not only killing students, but also Jusper’s parents and sister Regina (Joan Wangui). But even Mulili’s drunken rants had to be trimmed. Unfortunately, there was one explosive fight that broke out between Mulili and his fellow civil servant Kabito (Dominic Mutembi) which led to Kabito’s sudden demise and serves as an illustration of the kind of heinous power (packed with self-serving lies) that Mulili used with Boss to the detriment of the Kenyan people. Then the prison guard that Fish played was another small man who had a green light on cruelty that compelled him to treat prisoners like scum. But he was another one who required a trim in time. Yet he played such a comedic caricature on the night I watched last weekend that the audience loved him for his amusing mockery of the real guy.

Then, once those changes were in place the pace of the play picked up, and it was much easier to see that Betrayal wasn’t only about madness and how it had become a silent pandemic during the dark days of Moi. It was also about power. In the last scene we see that in the end, Imbuga’s message remains ambiguous when it comes to politics and the means of making changes in Kenyan society. However, he clearly prefers non-violence over the coup d’etats that Jasper might have wanted. But that ambiguity is diminished somewhat it the last scene when Jere (Bilal Mwaura) and Mosese (Martin Kigondu) propose a Gandhi-style approach to dealing with Boss. They are two of the prisoners locked up by Boss. Yet they are also actors in the play ‘Betrayal in the City’ which Jusper has been lucid enough to write and good enough to be staged before the head of state, during a dress rehearsal he attends. Imbuga’s message remains elusive up to the end, when Jusper is finally given a gun by Mosese, and a gunshot can be heard. Mulili receives a fatal bullet and Jusper gets his revenge in the end.

KENYAN WOMEN ARTISTS COME OUT TO SHINE FOR INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY By Margaretta wa Gacheru (POSTED 3.12.23) Kenyan visual arts are typically known for operating in a male-dominated field. But this month in light of International Women’s Day on March 8th, women artists have come ‘out of the woodwork’, emerging from their seemingly silent corners to appear on two of Nairobi’s main stages for public art, (places apart the private galleries) namely Alliance Francaise and Kenya Cultural Centre’s Cheche Gallery. Both Alliance and the Karakana Initiative sent call outs to female artists to come show their best works to curators organizing the two separate group shows. What is striking about the two exhibitions is that neither knew about the other, and both called out a completely different set of women artists. The curators from Alliance called on women who’d appeared in the Kenyan Arts Diary over the last decade. They also called on women who’d been featured in recent exhibitions, such as the 5 Lenses show at the Mall in Westlands, the Pink Flames exhibition at Village Market, and the U.M. women’s exhibition at the Waterfront in Karen. Meanwhile, the Karakana curator, Nahya Mando of Art-a-Glance called on women members of the Kenya National Visual Arts Association, the Sanaa Art Universe collective, and Seloya, an arts NGO that works in Kibera with women. All were asked to communicate with their female members to let them know they are invited to submit their art for consideration. In all there are 14 women in the “Malaika 2’ exhibition in Cheche Gallery and 35 in the “Her Story” show at Alliance Francaise. There is very little overlap between them apart from Eileen Tamining, a digital artist who’s exhibiting her work in both art spaces. Otherwise, there is a myriad of new faces to the Kenyan art world being introduced this month, both at Alliance and at Cheche Gallery. “We wanted to give young women artists an opportunity to exhibit their work,” Harsita Waters told BDLife. “At the same time, we invited number of more established women painters and sculptors to bring their best works for consideration,” she added. Among the ones best known both locally and overseas are sculptresses Chelenge van Rampelberg who has two fabulous wood sculptures in the show, and Maggie Otieno who also has two metal sculptures on display at Alliance’s ground floor gallery. Sebawali Sio also brought her metal and colored glass sculpture which stands next to Wambui Collymore’s mini-installation which she told BLife was about food inequality. Among the painters who have their work at Alliance are women like Anne Mwiti, Tabitha wa Thuku, Rahab Shine, Patti and Mari Endo, Chela Cherwon, Nadia Wamunyu, Sheila Bayley, Blaine Thuo and digital artist Lynn Atieno. Lynn and Blaine had previously been in 5 Lenses at the Mall, and Niketa Fazel was instrumental in reviving the Kenya Arts Diary for 2023. Even the troika of women artists who’ve been exhibiting together during the pandemic, namely Esther Mukuti, Nayea Sitonek, and Caroline Mburura, are in ‘Her Story.” Plus many other incredible women artists are featured at Alliance. It’s a show that only opened officially March 15th, a week late, given International Women’s Day was March 8. But we agree it’s better to be late than not show up at all. Meanwhile, the ‘Malaika 2’ exhibition Kenya Cultural Centre featured many newcomers to the Kenyan art scene. There are only 14 of them, and several are carry-overs from the exhibition that Karakana just brought down the day before it hung the current women’s exhibition. My initial query had been why were there so many wildlife images in a show about women. I was told all of those animals had babies with them, meaning implicitly that the mature creatures were female. That’s okay, but I think Ashna Kamande’s portraits of mama elephants and lions are more interesting because they are etched on rubber and finished with acrylics. Otherwise, Nahya confirmed that most of the exhibiting women were ‘self-taught’ in that they had not gone to a formal art school. But they all clearly have the passion to produce a slew of polished pieces. The majority of them are portraits of lovely women. However, since Steve Nderitu of the Karakana Initiative says the women’s exhibition will be an annual event, one hopes the women take that time to prepare new pieces specifically for Malaika 3 that are original, experimental, and slightly less stereotypic than what they presented this year. We are just glad that so many newcomers showed their faces through their art this month. It is a hopeful sign.

HEARTSTRINGS ‘GIVE OR TAKE’ HAILED FOR ITS SELF-MOCKERY

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 3.7.23)

The best thing about Heartstrings’ latest production, ‘Give or Take’ which they staged last weekend at Alliance Francaise, was the merciless mockery of themselves as an inept, money-grubbing theatre troupe. Equally laudable was the lampooning of the group’s producer-director Sammy Mwangi who was ‘MIA’, missing in action despite having been paid hundreds of thousands to share with his cast, which he did not. Instead, Mwangi disappeared without having briefed his team. They were meant to play family members of the soon-to-be spouse, Bryson (Dadson Gakecnga) at a make-believe ‘rocio’ (pre-wedding ceremony) for him and his pretend fiancée Grace (Esther Kahuha). The two had been drinking buddies for years. But there had never been a hint that marriage was in the forecast or even imaginable. So, when Grace, the ‘Queen of the night’ (a title given her by Bryson) asks him to marry her, he is confounded, adamant there is nothing like that in the cards. Yet Grace has finally decided to heed her mother’s wish, that she change her wild ways and get out of the bar culture and into a stable marriage where she can finally give her mom the grandchildren she wants to see before she dies. Death in two months’ time is the medical forecast for Mama Grace (Bernice Nthenya). That news is what sets off the real drama in the play. My problem with ‘Give or Take’ is in what preceded that news. The opening scene is set in a club but behind a well-lit screen so we can only see silhouetted dancers in a heated frenzy as they dance wildly and get lost in the loud, hypnotic sound. The silhouettes are fine but the scene itself was longer than necessary. Then came the 4am prayer scene which was also too long. Set in the home of Mama Grace, the parishioners trickled in too slowly, plus their stereotypic religious chatter was also slow and drawn out. It wasn’t until Grace came in, (drunk and quick to pass out) that the show took off. Grace was the problem. But since breakfast was about to arrive, (including a packet of Grace’s cookies baked with bhangi inside), a storyline finally emerged: Grace had to change. The message was made all the more urgent since Mama Grace had just two months to live, according to her best friend, Phyllis (Zaitun Salat). The next scene didn’t make sense to some men who couldn’t believe that Grace’s decision to get married could mean so much to the Mama. How could she forgive Grace so quickly when she had been so disgusted with her before? It seemed incredible to this man. Yet most mothers in this world want to see their daughters safe and settled, and busy making babies so the moms can finally become grandmothers. That made sense to me as did the decision by Grace’s drinking buddy Bryson not to get married. It’s what led to their calling in the cast of Heartstrings to attend the couple’s Rocio, pretending to be Bryson’s family. Creating a play within a play is not new. Shakespeare did it centuries ago in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The scene was the high point of hilarity, as I previously suggested, since the cast was bound to be unconvincing and the cause for more havoc up until the truth was revealed. These were painful moments in the play. Any mother or daughter might easily identify with some aspect of the argument that ensued between Grace and her Mother. It was made all the more poignant by the fact that these two actresses are among the best in Nairobi. Both were serious contenders for the Kenya Theatre Award for best actress in a lead role, and indeed, the vote allowed Esther to win. But again, someone who has never seen a Heartstrings production before might be confused by the way the show ends. “Too abrupt” I heard one newcomer say. I had to explain that it is a hallmark of their plays that consistently, they end with an unbelievable and unexpected revelation. In this case, after there seems to be a harmonious and happy resolution of the mother-daughter conflict, the final word comes out of the Mama’s mouth suggesting that maybe she hadn’t been sick at all; maybe she wasn’t going to die in two months’ time. But most assuredly, she was desperate to do anything to see her daughter change her ways, and this apparently is what she’d achieved.

MARVELOUS ACTING IN IMBUGA CLASSIC

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (revised 3.6.23) Francis Imbuga will forever be revered as a brilliant university lecturer, actor, and playwright. He was especially acclaimed for ‘Betrayal in the City’ which went, together with Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s and Micere Mugo’s ‘Trial of Dedan Kimathi’, to FESTAC, the second Pan African Arts Festival in Lagos in 1977. But after watching the premiere performance of ‘Betrayal’ last Thursday night at Kenya National Theatre, (the first time the play has been staged at KNT in over 45 years), I’m afraid I must fault Dr Imbuga (A man I knew and admired immensely) for one thing. It is the flaw that many playwrights fall prey to, and that is not editing their work down to the bare essentials. It’s a task that the show’s producer and director, Stuart Nash, promised to fix long before the end of the play’s run which will be on March 12th.

Editing is required not only because the play was too long, running nearly three hours. It was also due to the fact that deeply moving scenes went on just a few minutes too long. One instance of that was the powerful scene at the outset of the play when Jasper (Francis Ouma Faiz), the philosophy student, goes mad over the death of his brother who was murdered during a student demonstration. His madness is meant to be a reflection of the nation’s madness with its impulsive, acquisitive, and murderous ruler Boss (Raymond Ofula). But it could’ve been shortened by several minutes. He could’ve also come on stage sooner. So could his parents who were sluggish at the outset.

The wailing of Jasper’s mother, Nina (Wakio Nzenge), could also have been shortened a bit, although again, her critical condition, especially after one son was brutally gunned down by police and the other was snatched and jailed for ‘disturbing the peace’ with his righteous rage, was easily understood. And the strength of her performance cannot be minimized. But even the scene where the civil servants, including Mr. Tumbo (Dru Muthure), were busy feasting on food and not going straight to the flare up between Mulili (Ibrahim Muchemi), Boss’s cousin and Kabito (Dominic Mutemi) could’ve been shortened. Their fight led to Kabito’s comeuppance after Mulili told Boss a pack of lies to get a green light to bump Kabito off over a silly ego clash that could’ve easily been resolved.

Certainly, the set changes were swift. And while they were going on, there was a radio newscaster broadcasting timely news regarding the standoff between the State and the students. What some may not know is that Imbuga’s play effectively mirrored what was happening in Kenya at the time. Despite it technically being about the fictitious country called Kafira, it was NPAS, at the insistence of the cast, to shamelessly change Kafira back to Kenya to give the show more relevance as a reflection of the country’s recent past.

Besides, the circumstances today are relatively different from what they were in the 1970s when Imbuga scripted the show (although Kenya is still plagued by nepotism, corruption, and impunity).

President Moi was the equivalent to Boss. And students, faculty, and anyone else who dared to challenge the status quo or demand social change, was endangered with everything from torture in the bowels of Nyayo House, (as Mosese (Martin Kigondu), was or dealt with by other ruthless means. Imbuga was brilliant in his subtle references to what was happening all around him, and Betrayal has stood the test of time. However, I look forward to seeing the show again after it is slightly revised. For instance, the scene between Regina (Joan Wambui) and her brother Jasper could have been shortened to let Tumbo go straight into his conversation about the play, especially as the play- within-the-play served as a pivotal moment when guns got into prisoners’ hands and Jere (Bilal Mwaura) got to speak in terms that might well have mirrored the playwright’s own feelings towards violence, revenge, and peace.

I need not be a spoiler for those who will go see the show or haven’t read it yet. But I will say Jasper played the most marvelous mad man, even as his fatal deed inflicted on the most troublesome character in the play was inspired by an Old Testament adage, an eye for an eye. I suspect that the director was shy about tampering with Imbuga’s text but he’s wiser now, and I look forward to seeing Betrayal a second time before the 12th.

CAGED BIRD A MORALITY PLAY SET IN PRESENT-DAY NAIROBI

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (composed and posted 3.5,23)

Caged Bird is the title of Mavin Kibicho’s play which was staged last weekend at Nairobi Cinema. It is also the title of a poem which was also written by Kibicho together with Peter Sani who played the dreamy, unemployed poet in the same script. Without reading the poem or watching the play, one could easily assume they’re all about liberation and what’s involved in getting free of whatever encumbrance it is, be it joblessness, loneliness, fear, alcohol, or poverty. In fact, this play presents a virtual laundry list of problems confronting not just a few but many Kenyans today. At the top of the list should have been poverty, but that was never mentioned outright in the play. The vast gap between the lifestyles of Alexus and Joanna speaks volumes about the glaring abyss between the rich and the poor.

Otherwise, the play takes place inside Amy’s (Mitchelle Tayaz) flat where the rent is due and she has no means of paying it. Nor does her brother John (Peter Saisi) who spends his days reading poetry and pretending to be too busy to help out in the house. Amy is desperate and the play is full of desperate people who come to Amy’s at her request. We’re thinking maybe they’ll help out with the rent, but Joanna (Beryl Oundo) is struggling to find a lucrative jua kali (informal sector) job, while Alexus (Naomi Mburuh) is distraught since her boyfriend just walked away. All three women have their agonies, but Amy’s is most immediate since the landlord is at the door and she cant afford to let him in for fear of being evicted. It’s John who observes that all of them are behaving like ‘caged birds’, especially after the landlord has locked the ladies inside Amy’s flat and cut the electricity.

Kibicho has created a play that compounds serious social and psychological problems that are almost too painful to watch. The high-pitched tensions between the women come to a volatile boil once Alexus’s bank phones her to say she owes the bank money since someone had obtained her details and made her a guarantor of the culprit’s so-called ‘loan’. As it turns out, it is Joan who was sneaky and seriously desperate enough to take information off of Amy’s phone about her friend Alexus and somehow manipulate the system to obtain the funds it seems she needed. Once the truth was revealed, Joan explained that her son had been deathly ill and needed medical care. So, out of desperation she manipulated the system to get what she required. For Alexus, the Sh5,000 was peanuts in her mind, so that was the least of her problems. (Still, I had to wonder how Alexus couldn’t have donated Sh10,000 to Amy which is what she required to pay the rent. But nobody apparently thought about such a solution.

It was only after Alexus more or less forgave Joan that some other slur from Joan riled Alexus up so much that they went for hand-to-hand combat, stopped only by Amy’s intervention. It’s at this point that Amy wakes up from her own agony and asks that the women stop a moment and pray. It’s from here on out that we see how this play has religious underpinnings. They were bound to come out once the situation went to such extremes that there was no hope other than to seek solace and support from a higher power. Naturally, from that point on, things began to change. First, it was John who agreed to jump out the one window wide enough for him to slip through and take the plunge. From there he was able to come around and uplock the front door. After that, there came a call from one of Joan’s clients. He wanted to forward funds he had owed her. USD10,000 was effectively seen as the miracle that was the Higher Power’s response to their prayers. But if there were any skeptics, agnostics, or atheists in the room (which there definitely were not), they would have complained that the phone call ‘from Afghanistan’ was far-fetched and the solution to one part of their plight was too easy and simplistic. But Caged Bird was not a play meant for nonbelievers. Nairobi Cinema has been turned into a church hall, and virtually everyone present was a member of the City Lighters Church. For them, the Caged Bird sent out a clearcut message of hope and peace of mind that was well dramatized.

HEARTSTRINGS ‘GIVE OR TAKE’ MAKES SELF-MOCKERY A SUCCESS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (composed 3.4.23) The best thing about Heartstrings’ latest production, ‘Give or Take’ which they staged last weekend at Alliance Francaise, was the merciless mockery of themselves as an inept, money-grubbing theatre troupe. Equally laudable was the lampooning of the group’s producer-director Sammy Mwangi who was ‘MIA’, missing in action despite having been paid hundreds of thousands to share with his cast, which he did not. Instead, Mwangi disappeared without having briefed his team. They were meant to play family members of the soon-to-be spouse, Bryson (Dadson Gakecnga) at a make-believe ‘rocio’ (pre-wedding ceremony) for him and his pretend fiancée Grace (Esther Kahuha). The two had been drinking buddies for years. But there had never been a hint that marriage was in the forecast or even imaginable. So, when Grace, the ‘Queen of the night’ (a title given her by Bryson) asks him to marry her, he is confounded, adamant there is nothing like that in the cards. Yet Grace has finally decided to heed her mother’s wish, that she change her wild ways and get out of the bar culture and into a stable marriage where she can finally give her mom the grandchildren she wants to see before she dies. Death in two months’ time is the medical forecast for Mama Grace (Bernice Nthenya). That news is what sets off the real drama in the play. My problem with ‘Give or Take’ is in what preceded that news. The opening scene is set in a club but behind a well-lit screen so we can only see silhouetted dancers in a heated frenzy as they dance wildly and get lost in the loud, hypnotic sound. The scene itself was longer than necessary. We got the gist of it quickly with no need to belabor the point. Then came the 4am prayer scene which was also too long. Set in the home of Mama Grace, the parishioners trickled in too slowly, plus their stereotypic religious chatter was also too long and drawn out. It wasn’t until Grace came in, (drunk and quick to pass out) that the show took off. Grace was the problem. But since breakfast was about to arrive, (including a packet of Grace’s cookies baked with bhangi inside), that a storyline finally emerged: Grace had to change. The message was made all the more urgent since Mama Grace had just two months to live, according to her best friend, Phyllis (Zaitun Salat). The next scene didn’t make sense to some men who couldn’t believe that Grace’s decision to get married could mean so much to the Mama. How could she forgive Grace so quickly when she had been so disgusted with her before? It seemed incredible to this man. Yet most mothers in this world want to see their daughters safe and settled, and busy making babies so the moms can finally become grandmothers. That made sense to me as did the decision by Grace’s drinking buddy Bryson not to get married. It’s what led to their calling in the cast of Heartstrings to attend the couple’s Rocio, pretending to be Bryson’s family. Creating a play within a play is not new. Shakespeare did it centuries ago in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The scene was the high point of hilarity, as I previously suggested, since the cast was bound to be unconvincing and the cause for more havoc up until the truth was revealed. These were painful moments in the play. Any mother or daughter might easily identify with some aspect of the argument that ensued between Grace and her Mother. It was made all the more poignant by the fact that these two actresses are among the best in Nairobi. Both were serious contenders for the Kenya Theatre Award for best actress in a lead role, and indeed, the vote allowed Esther to win. But again, someone who has never seen a Heartstrings production before might be confused by the way the show ends. “Too abrupt” I heard one newcomer say. I had to explain that it is a hallmark of their plays that consistently, they end with an unbelievable and unexpected revelation. In this case, after there seems to be a harmonious and happy resolution of the mother-daughter conflict, the final word comes out of the Mama’s mouth suggesting that maybe she hadn’t been sick at all; maybe she wasn’t going to die in two months’ time. But most assuredly, she was desperate to do anything to see her daughter change her ways, and this apparently is what she’d achieved.

PATTI ENDO & PAUL ONDITI AT TRIBAL GALLERY

ENDO AND ONDITI COLLABO AT TRIBAL By margaretta wa gacheru Patti Endo’s collaborative exhibition with Paul Onditi which opened last weekend at Tribal Gallery isn’t the first time she’s collaborated with a fellow artist. “One of my most successful collaborations has been with Sandstorm,” says the creative who, besides being a professional artist, has a brand that she shares with her sister, Yvonne. “It’s Endo Squared [Endo2],” Patti tells BDLife. That’s the company she started with Yvonne upon her return from her art studies in UK in 2016. In fact, the Sandstorm leather and canvas bags that she adorns with her distinctive single-line drawings are works of art, not just merchandize that monetizes the creative work that she does. The heavy cotton bags that Endo2 shows off on Instagram are also reflective the collaborative spirit. It is one that Patti and Yvonne have shared for the last 25 years, ever since she was born in a suburb outside Tokyo two and a half decades ago. The art featuring the Endo2 logo and sold in Sandstorm shops is different from the work that she is currently showing with Onditi in Loresho. Both reflect her love of line drawing and her focus on the figurative. But the collaborative works found in the exhibition bring together two radically different modalities with varying degrees of success. “We have very different styles,” Patti admits. “I’m in minimalist which may be a function of my Japanese background. And he is a ‘maximulist ’ [if such a word exists] meaning his art fills all the space available,” she adds. But despite their stylistic differences, the idea of illustrating a meeting of the minds and hearts in a series of delicate figures is an evocative one. It comes out most literally in their ‘Beyond Self’ series where their minds seem to almost merge into a reassuring oneness. Yet anyone can see how difficult that process can be, given the psychological boundaries associated with the human ego and a sense of self or identity. There are only five collaborative works that Endo and Onditi produced for this exhibition. Otherwise, both artists seem to take this opportunity to display some of their more experimental works. For Onditi, Smokey is still with us, looking quite a bit stronger and more decisive as in a piece like ‘Sporadic 3.’ And Smokey’s cities no longer look hopelessly shattered as several did during one show that he had during the darkest days of the pandemic. Now, in spite of his ‘cityscapes’ (Apart Apartments, No Title, and Melting Series 3) looking damaged, they no longer emit a dystopic feeling of despair. Now he even gives his ‘skyscrapers’ color to compliment his lines. Meanwhile, Patti explores the same theme of self and oneness with another human being in the solo piece ‘Reflecting the Self’. Using Japanese ink on Japanese calligraphy paper, she also depicts two heads knocking together but in no way do they transcend the ego boundaries of separation. They look willing but unable. What works more comfortably is their collaborative “Dance of Minds”. Where the two are now in tandem, expressing their shared spirit in their movement of body and mind. One needs to spend a bit time with their art at Tribal Gallery to get a feeling for this specific show since there is a lot that might not be seen if one passes judgement on the exhibition hastily. For there are hidden secrets in both artists’ works. For instance, Patti points out that in every one of their joint works, there’s a subtle visual component that she created as a backdrop behind their larger philosophical constructs, translated into human forms. One has to look closely to see the tiny faces that Patti has drawn delicately and decisively on each of the five completed for this show. Her faces are there in a work like ‘The Battle with One Self’ and also with the one on the program cover titled ‘Beyond Self.’ For me, they act as a kind of mental cushion easing my eyes into an appreciation of their art, be it collaborative or solo. Patti admits that people wonder how the two of them came up with this collaborative program since they knew it was not easy. “It came out of a conversation,” she says, noting that she has known Onditi since she was a little girl. “My parents knew Paul and we even owned some of his art,” recalls Patti. “He was also one of the first people who really encouraged me to pursue my art.”